Is religious terrorism a product of western modernity?

In the 21st century there is visibly an increase
in religiously motivated terror attacks. Many of the radical groups
identify themselves with radical Islam, but how did violence and
religion evolve to this point?

Photo from ISIS taken in Ninive area, Iraq, in 2015 and published by the group on their web pages. Picture by Balkis Press ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved. The world is currently facing a vicious, new form
of international terrorism. The Islamic State (IS) has expressed its
plans to attack Europe while recruiting a growing number of foreign
fighters. In fact, a significant number of EU citizens are already
engaged with IS both in Syria and in the EU. The attacks on Paris
underline the scale and complexity of the current threat in Europe.
Such brutal acts by religiously motived groups in western countries
cause global outrage. People feel that their values and sovereignty
are attacked. But how can this rise in religiously motivated violence
be explained?

The literal meaning of the word ‘terror’
indicates the aim to change a political situations by spreading fear
rather than causing material damage to the target. Looking at
conventional warfare, material losses are the main goal, spreading
fear is just the byproduct of these actions. ‘Terror’ on the
other hand creates more fear than it causes material loss for the
enemy. Spreading fear is therefore the whole story for terrorist
groups and shows the disproportion of strength between the terrorists
and their target, and the fear they, therefore, want to inspire.

Are terrorist attacks a new modern
phenomenon?

In the 21st century there is visibly an increase
in religiously motivated terror attacks. Many of the radical groups
identify themselves with radical Islam, but how did violence and
religion evolve to this point? Al- Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS, just
to mention the most popular ones are causing fear and anxiety
throughout the world. But are terrorist attacks a new modern
phenomenon? Why are so many attacks religiously motivated?

The role of religion in politics has always been a
difficult one. With the Peace of Westphalia being established in
1648, a new international system was introduced. Before that,
religion was the main source of conflict and competition between
states or kingdoms. The Westphalian order banished religion more and
more from the political sphere, which was exacerbated by the
processes of modernization and secularization, leading to the view
that religion would soon disappear completely from politics and even
from the lives of people.

One can say that without the banishment of
religion, the modern state and the development of the present-day
international system would not have been possible [1].
The state took the marginalization of religion and the loyalty of the
population to God and transferred it to the state. The rising
confidence in national institutions make the belief in a supernatural
power obsolete.

The core features of the modern state are a
reliable monetary system, a stable legal system and an apparatus,
that can guarantee internal security [2].
As it is well known, the concept of the modern state has not emerged
uniformly around the globe. The process of the modern state has a
long history and has led to the disarmament of people and the
centralization of executive power as well as the use of violence.[3]
This reorganization of public violence and the state’s
monopoly on violence is the central instrument to ensure everyday
safety of citizens from random acts of force.

Terror attacks undermine this monopoly and create
fear among the population. According to Zygmund Bauman, in
modernity we build a moral distance. Due to the huge bureaucratic
apparatus and its monopoly on violence, the modern state can use
violence without its people really knowing. Hannah Arendt argues in a
similar way in ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, where she describes that
evil is not personified in one person, instead crimes can be
committed by anyone, who follows orders and stops reflecting on their
own actions.

The views of radical
Islamist groups are as much shaped by western ideology as by their
religious beliefs.

To use violence on a big scale you need a high
degree of rationalization and process optimization. Waging war
in modernity is all about logistics. The healthy soldier is the basis
for the logistics of the military. The history to transform networks
is fundamental to the history of warfare. Nazi Germany committed the
worst acts of violence in history. The aim was to breed a new type of
human being. The processes used there were highly modern. The gas
chambers were part of modernity. Even though some people believe that
being modern has only a positive connotation, in fact, there are many
ways of being modern and some of them are monstrous.[4]

Like other modern political ideologies such as
communism and Nazism, radical Islam is modern. The views of radical
Islamist groups are as much shaped by western ideology as by their
religious beliefs. The positivist view of modernity explains that
when societies fail to inherit the findings of science, they become
chaotic and divided. The progress of a society is based on its
progress in science. As knowledge advances, so does humanity. Hence,
every society has to go from a religious worldview to a metaphysical
outlook, and from that to a scientific or positivistic world view.[5]
At the end of this process the moral and political conflicts of the
past will disappear.[6]

Unfortunately, reality is a little different,
modern war is a by-product of the modern state. In history, wars were
waged in the battlefield. The main goal was to raise mass armies, but
not to target the civilian population. 9/11 has produced a new kind
of warfare. These new conflicts arise from the interaction of old
religious and ethnic divisions and the increased competition for
natural resources and are waged by very unconventional means. This
situation leads to a moral problem, due to the verticality here, it
becomes challenging to distinguish civilians from combatants.

Countries in the Middle East inherited the modern
state from Europe, but their societies weren’t adequately prepared
for that change. The reason violence is still so dominant in those
societies, has nothing to do with human beings having an
irrepressible instinct for aggression, but the simple fact that no
substitute for this arbiter in international affairs has appeared in
the political scene.[7]
Political-religious crises occur especially where old segregation
patterns erode without being replaced by effective new ones. This is
especially true when the balance of power between different groups
shifts or new actors and elites emerge, who no longer respect the
current power distribution. One of the main examples of such an
erosion of established religious conflict is the emergence of radical
fundamentalist movements in the 20th and 21st centuries.[8]

Hannah Arendt argues that the proliferation of
techniques and machines menaces the existence of whole nations.
According to her, violence can destroy power but not create it. The
fact is that the decrease of power will increase violence.
Governments and organizations, fearing their power is slipping away,
won’t resist the temptation to use violence in trying to restore
their power.[9]

The less the population is used to political
violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock after an
act of terrorism

However, the terrorists hope that even though they
can barely dent the enemy’s material the so inspired fear and chaos
will cause the enemy, to misuse its strength.[10]
To achieve their aim, they present the modern state with an
impossible challenge. The less the population is used to political
violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock after an
act of terrorism. Killing 130 people in Paris draws far more
attention than killing thousands in Nigeria or Iraq. Yuval Noah
Harari calls this the paradox of the modern state: the very success
of modern states in preventing political violence makes them
particularly vulnerable to terrorism.[11]

The power of the state is defined by its monopoly
of the legitimate use of force.[12]
In other words, state action and policy always relies upon the
deployment of police, military, the prison system and so on. Without
the legitimate ability to deploy violence, modern states cannot
function.[13]

Violence can be separated into objective and
subjective violence. Subjective violence can be seen in the crimes
that dictators and authoritarian regimes commit. You can easily
locate the evil, the subject, which caused the violence. Objective
violence is more difficult to locate. It is more difficult to
identify the guilty subject in these crimes, e.g. in the million who
died as a result of globalization.[14]

For many scholars, radical Islam is a western
construction. During the Cold War, religious movements in the Middle
East were funded, armed and used as buffers against the Soviets.[15]
Even though Islamists define themselves as anti- modern,
radical Islam is evidently a by-product of the late modern
globalization. You can see that in Al- Qaeda’s use of technology,
offshore financial institutions and in ISIS´s use of the internet.

The use of terror by Islamist organizations has
very little to do with traditional Islam, but is more related to
asymmetric warfare used by modern revolutionary movements.[16]
Therefore, suicide bombing has nothing to do with anything religous,
but falls into strategic terrorism, justified by religious
ideology.[17]
Cheap and highly effective, suicide bombing is the technique of
choice for groups confronting overwhelming conventional military
force.[18]

For many scholars, radical Islam is a western
construction.

Those who join violent extremist groups rarely
have formal training in the religion they are trying to defend. Often
they don’t even have a deep understanding of the religion and their
knowledge is shaped mostly by online sources or discussions with
other extremists.

Reports say that those drawn to religious violence
are usually raised in secular families and households.[19]
However, many foreign fighters were diagnosed with mental problems
before joining ISIS. An aggravating factor is that most of the
recruits have had criminal records before joining the organization,
starting from petty crimes to more serious ones. Terrorist
cells ready to perpetrate a terrorist attack are mostly domestic and
locally based in European countries. ISIS’s training of recruits
consists of imported warfare techniques in the use of weapons,
explosives and specific killing techniques.

With the shift of conventional warfare to
asymmetric warfare the techniques and technology that terrorists use,
are very modern and contemporary. The inability of the west to
establish functional democracies in regions like the Middle East,
enabled radical religious groups to emerge. With the further
development of globalization these ideas were easy to be spread and
members easy to mobilize. Even though Islamists define themselves as
anti- modern, the way they wage war is evidently a by-product of the
late modern globalization.

[1]
Thomas, Scott M.: Taking religious and cultural pluralism
seriously – The global resurgence of religion and the
transformation of international society in International Relations
Theory and Religion, Palgrave MacMillian, New York 2003 S.25

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